FANTASTIC FOUR #570

Mr. Fantastic, not content to rest on his laurels after an incredible streak of recent achievements (which include provoking the Hulk into destroying much of New York City, orchestrating the Gitmo-style imprisonment of his fellow superheroes, provoking an alien invasion), has dreamed up his wildest, most brilliant idea yet: Solve everything. I never would have thought of that. For Reed, this means creating a blasphemous device which grants him congress with the alternate Mr. Fantastics of a thousand worlds, and together they plot to alter the very fabric of reality to reflect their own megalomaniacal whims. If he really wants a challenge, perhaps he could hold off on tampering with the DNA of the universe and take another crack at curing the horrific deformities he inflicted upon his best friend fifty years ago. Hey, though, good job launching a rocket into outer space, mere men would have never dared dream it!

THOR #602

Thor calls upon Dr. Strange, Sorcerer Supreme and blacksmith extraordinaire, to repair his damaged hammer (at the cost of his Odinescense or whatever) in time for the Thunder God to rob a ludicrously decrepit old woman of her soul, thereby reincarnating his lost lover Sif. Meanwhile, William the short-order cook attempts to convince the Gods of Asgard that Dr. Doom means to betray them, but frankly if the name "Dr. Doom" was not enough warning then I fear there may be no reaching them.

CABLE #17

Having succeeded in his quest to turn the Earth into such a living shithole that there will be no future for Cable to flee into, Bishop takes control of the last remaining city and hunts for Hope at the scene of humanity's last stand. Cable, having been separated from Hope for two years while suffering from the loss of telekinetic control over the techno-organic virus that plagues his body, arrives to find a now adolescent Hope living in hiding, protected by a boy she's fallen in love with. Horrified at this, Cable steals a rocket built by the inhabitants of the city (their last hope for escaping the dying Earth and preserving the human race) and flies off into space. I realize Bishop and Cable believe that none of this will count if Hope dies/lives (depending on which one you ask) and I hope one of them is right, because otherwise these two assholes are going to have a lot to answer for.

STAR TREK: CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER

In a state of sweaty, paranoid frenzy due to an accidental injection of space-crack, Dr. McCoy lunges into a time portal and unravels the threads of Earth's history, causing the Enterprise to fade from existence.

With the help of a big talking rock, Kirk and Spock are able to roughly pinpoint McCoy's place in time and arrive in Depression-era NYC meaning to stop his madness. Kirk wastes no time in romancing the first history-woman he meets -- Edith Keeler, a social worker who feeds the local derelicts on the condition that they submit to her lectures and wild, baseless predictions for the future (that are made only slightly less demented-sounding by our knowledge that they will come true) -- but soon Spock utilizes the series of tubes and colorful lights he's constructed to reveal the awful truth: she is a loathsome fucking hippie, and unless she dies, she will single-handedly poison America's will to stand against Germany and Hitler will conquer the world and cancel the future. Edith Keeler must die.

Meanwhile, McCoy arrives in the past and harasses street people with his paranoid delusions until stumbling into Edith's mission, where she nurses him back to sanity. Bones is overjoyed when he finds Kirk and Spock also in the past, but when Edith senselessly blunders into the street, Kirk must make the heartrending decision to stop McCoy from pushing her out of the path of oncoming traffic. Love dies, the future lives. "Let's get the hell out of here," Kirk says.

UNCANNY X-MEN #509

The X-Men are enjoying their new, idyllic life in San Francisco: a beautiful, tolerant land where mutants can live openly, a land where they are free to carry out their own brand of lawless, brutal justice in the streets, free to instruct young children while dressed in garish S&M costumes.


It all seems too good to be true, and naturally the state of California has introduced a ballot initiative (Proposition X) which would institute mandatory sterilization of all mutants. Cyclops feels confident that the measure will be defeated, but the others are (perhaps justifiably) uncomfortable with their right to breed being put to a vote. On top of that, Scott has to deal with everyone crawling up his ass about the supposed problems he's having with Emma. Apparently everyone in his life has pinned all their hopes for love on the success of this relationship, but maybe the guy just feels like sleeping on the couch sometimes, y'know?

As if the prospect of forced castration and relationship trouble weren't enough to keep him up at night, Scott's demented ex-wife (X-Wife?) has assembled a Sisterhood of Evil mutants, full of vague, supernatural plans for destroying the X-Men and conquering death that center on reincarnating Psylocke as their mindless slave and repeatedly stabbing Wolverine. This is what you get, when you marry the evil clone of your high school sweetheart and then act all surprised when she turns out to be The Goblin Queen.

THOR #601

In this issue, everyone is as busy as beavers!

- Thor sits in a field pondering the fate of his hammer, which broke a little after he smashed his grandfather in the face with it;

- Balder agrees to relocate to Latveria, despite his reservations;

- Dr. Doom researches exotic foods on Wikipedia;

- Volstagg becomes hopelessly drunk, shares a moment of tender understanding with a goat, throws things around, and yells at his fellows for abandoning Thor ("codpiece sniffer" is not an accusation to be made lightly, but Volstagg was angry and ashamed and I understand why he felt like he had to go there);

- a beautiful lady of Asgard falls in love, quite plausibly, with a short order cook

and there was some other stuff about Loki's female form actually being the body of Thor's beloved Sif, and that she's going to die now that Loki is abandoning it. IDK, I didn't pay much attention to this, except to wonder how Thor failed to notice that his evil half-brother had been reincarnated in the body of his estranged lover. Thor: God of Thunder, not Keen Observation.

DAREDEVIL #118

Daredevil gets yelled at by his supporting cast, who disapprove of his alliance with the Kingpin, and more generally of the way in which he's been fucking up his life and the lives of the people around him. Foggy, in particular, is so pissed that he fires Matt from their law firm. Can he... do that? Meanwhile, Kingpin bickers with the ghost of his ex-wife (who appears to be literally visible to him), and sets his plot to destroy Lady Bullseye into motion by sending Leland "The Owl" Owlsley to hire her for a mysterious job. Maybe his plan is to hire her to kill HERSELF.

LAST DAYS OF BRUCE WAYNE

The last days of Bruce Wayne were fateful and momentous: betrayed by his lover Jetsabel Jet to the Black Glove, an evil organization of wealthy socialite criminals whose raison d'être is to corrupt and destroy noble souls, Bruce was attacked with a post-hypnotic suggestion that had been implanted during his time in an isolation chamber (he was trying to simulate madness in an attempt to better understand the Joker), and, just for kicks, they also shoot him up with heroin and crystal meth before dumping him in the ghetto. If Batman has a super-power, though, it is his uncanny level of preparedness against any possible assault, and to protect himself in the event of an attack on his mind, Bruce used the memory of one of his isolation hallucinations as the basis for a safe mode for the operating system of his brain: the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh!

Above: Batman has lost his mind.

The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh prowls the streets, beating the agents of the Black Glove half to death with a baseball bat and ultimately confronting their leader in his stronghold at Arkham Asylum. There, Black Glove kingpin Dr. Jonathan Hurt feebly tries to convince Bruce first that he is actually his father, Thomas Wayne, and when that doesn't work he claims to be Satan (I guess) and offers to let Bruce live on the condition that he become his manservant. Somewhat predictably, Bruce rejects this offer, and in the ensuing melee a helicopter explodes and Batman is presumed dead.

BUT! In fact, Bruce survived the explosion, and is immediately called away on Justice League business to investigate the murder of the New God Orion, who was killed by a bullet of radion fired backwards through time. In the course of his investigation into this act of deicide, he is captured by the servants of Darkseid and is subject to weeks of psychic torture before overcoming his captors through the sheer force of his will, finally coming face-to-face with the Dark God himself. In his final moment, Batman breaks his vow to never kill or use a firearm -- and, armed with the same bullet that was used to kill Orion, he achieves the ultimate fulfillment of his life's mission by murdering the cosmic personification of evil, before falling victim to the dread Omega Sanction, becoming hopelessly dislodged from time and space. Batman RIP.

First Church of the New Gods

FRIENDS: DO NOT WASTE ANOTHER PRAYER on sweaty desert gods who may never return! There are NEW GODS, and their struggles will decide the fate of all free peoples of the universe! Pray instead to Highfather, he who can read the will of the Source! Pray for mighty Orion, who fights for Earth! Pray for his strength, so that he might overcome the servants of Apokalips! Pray for his soul, so that he might travel through darkness and not become lost! Finally, pray for yourselves! Pray that you never have to live as a malformed slave of Darkseid! Pray that Death can race faster than Anti-Life!

COMIX ON PARADE

Daredevil #117

Following the death of his wife, Wilson "The Kingpin" Fisk left America to start a new life in Europe, where he quickly fell in love with a Spanish woman and her two young children. For their sake he had renounced violence, and so it fell upon Lady Bullseye and her army of undead ninja assassins ("The Hand") to brutally murder them, and thereby free Fisk to return to the business of trying to kill Daredevil. This catastrophically stupid plan backfires almost immediately, as the Kingpin does return to New York to find Daredevil, but does so to form an alliance with the intent of destroying The Hand once and for all. Wilson seems to consider this a suicide mission, but seeing as The Hand have never successfully completed any evil plot that I can remember, he probably just has a death wish.




Dark Avengers #3


We flashback to Norman Osborn sitting down for a heart-to-heart with The Sentry about what it's like to be an out-of-control super-powered lunatic, while a bunch of crazy shit like this continues to happen.





Captain America #48

Bucky has been captured by the mad scientist Zhang Chin, an enemy from his past who has also managed to kidnap Namor the Sub-Mariner and to resurrect the original Human Torch. Chin intends to use Human Torch as a carrier for a deadly virus he's created, but the Black Widow arrives in time to free the heroes. Bucky manages to stop the virus, while Namor kills Chin and reminds us surface dwellers of the need to control our useless and disgusting emotions -- a lesson both valuable and timely.




X-Force/Cable: MESSIAH WAR

Tired of waiting for Cable to stop dicking around in the future and bring the damn messiah home, Cyclops sends Wolverine and the other mean, pointy X-Men he hangs out with forward through time to find him. Upon arriving they immediately run into Deadpool, who is there not because he has a time machine but because he has just gone on living for a thousand years, and together they set out to find Cable and engage him in a completely pointless fight. Meanwhile, Bishop finds Cable's arch-enemy, his demented clone Stryfe, drinking in a bar. Bishop blames all of the crimes he's committed against humanity on Cable, and promises Stryfe revenge against HIS arch-enemy (Stryfe's, not Bishop's; Bishop's arch-enemy is Cable) Apocalypse if he kills Cable. Oh, and they might all be stuck in the future or something. I guess.



X-Men: Sword of the Braddocks

lol I changed my mind, I do not want to read this fucking thing

Dark Avengers #1-2

Tony Stark's term as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. could fairly be described as troubled. On his watch Captain America was assassinated; his plan to deal with the Hulk backfired and ended with the complete destruction of New York City at the hands of an enraged, unstoppable green monster; and all of his vaunted technology was rendered useless by alien invaders who infiltrated the ranks of government and super hero organizations and briefly conquered the Earth. Even by the standards of the last 8 years this stands out as an exceptional series of cock-ups, and so Stark had to be removed from power. To restore honor and accountability to the position of America's Top Cop comes Norman Osborn, a psychotic super-criminal so senselessly evil that he once chose his high-rise office space for the view it afforded him of the bridge from which he threw Gwen Stacy to her death. Presumably this was the one final fiendish breath drawn by the Bush Administration, but President Obama has not opposed the appointment.

Osborn wastes no time in forming a new Avengers team, comprised of other mentally ill supervillains eager to live out their fantasies of heroism -- Bullseye becomes Hawkeye, Venom becomes Spider-Man, etc -- and a few former Stark Avengers who are either too bloodthirsty or emotionally unstable to care who they're working for, so long as they get to hit things. And yet something is missing, for what are the Avengers without Captain America and Iron Man? This does not escape Norman, and in his glorious insanity he helps himself to one of Iron Man's spare suits*, paints it red, white, and blue, and declares himself THE IRON PATRIOT.

The Asshole Avengers have little time to enjoy their posh new lives as superheroes, however: a volatile situation has developed in Eastern Europe. One of Director Osborn's first official acts was to free Dr. Doom from federal prison (cuz, sure, why not) and send him back to his kingdom of Latveria. There he and his envoy are attacked by the Arthurian-era sorceress Morgana le Fey, who had shared what she thought was a tender love affair with Doom only to realize he was using her to gain access to her vast reserves of evil spells.

"BAVALOOMNI" is the most powerful magic word. If you are ever engaged in magical combat with an angry 6th-Century sorceress, say it first.

The Avengers arrive to calm things down -- or, more accurately, to tear Morgana's fucking head off -- but she cannot be thwarted so easily, as she continues to reappear from the past to attack them with magic and gargoyles. Is all hope lost? Probably! I'll let you know as soon as I read the new issue!

*Easily done, since Stark used federal funds to rebuild his personal infrastructure after it was smashed by the Hulk. Oh, the corruption!

THOR #600

Loki, that mischievous bitch, resurrects an ancient Asgardian warrior, enchants him so that he thinks everything he sees is demonic, and sets him loose to wreak havoc in Times Square. Thor arrives just in time to get the shit slapped out of him, and when he cries out for reinforcements, Norman Osborne and his Asshole Avengers answer the call and try to arrest them both. Thor heroically beats their asses and manages to strike a desperate final blow against the mad god, slaying him. But lo, what treachery is this? Loki arrives and informs Thor that the Asgardian he's just killed was Bor, father of Odin, grandfather of Thor.

In Asgard, the law is clear and absolute, and for his act of deicide Thor must be banished. Unfortunate, because the remaining Asgardians are a hapless, pitifully stupid bunch; and sure enough, with Thor gone it takes Loki something like 15 minutes to convince the lot of them that they should pack up and move to Latveria, the most evil place on Earth. Quite why Dr. Doom should want these drunken louts living in his country is not made clear, but doubtless he has some nefarious end in store for them. Tragedy, thy name is Asgard!